Dawn Raid on the Barbel Front.

 Just a quick catch up on yesterday's session in search of Tench, it was rubbish and that was that, a waste of time and effort as nothing I or my father did could arouse a bite off of any unsuspecting fish, so I forgot that trip in a hurry (angling wise) and woke up pretty early this morning hoping to snare a good Barbel, travelling light as I usually do I set about working the river from the bottom of my first beat and heading up, the river was up and coloured which is just perfect for a Barbel session.

 Although I love sight fishing in gin-clear rivers the colour didn't bother me and within 10 minutes my arm was nearly wrenched from it's socket as a strong fish tore off downstream but the fight immediately felt that it would be short-lived as I could feel that the fish had gone through a snag on it's first charge and the line was grating on the snag constantly, with 6lb line straight through I didn't fancy my chances so I leant into the Barbel and gave it some serious side strain as if I was going to lose the fish I would at least like a fighting chance...(pardon the pun)...on landing it and by some miracle the fish responded to the return power that she headed upstream towards me at a pace for which struggled to keep up with, luckily for me the speed of the water helped keep tension and then all of a sudden the grating stopped and the fish started to fight harder, the shackles were certainly off as she tore of upstream again but not before flashing it's right-hand side to me as it careered through the oncoming flow, a double figure fish for sure was the verdict but after 5 or so minutes she still wasn't ready and my right arm was starting to struggle and a quick swap of arms was needed just to recuperate in preparation for the finale of the battle.

 Another 3 or 4 minutes had passed before I could actually get a shot at landing this deranged Barbel and after three abandoned attempts the fourth was successful, a double figure fish lay in the net reviving. Bloody brilliant, but I really need to start doing exercises before fishing if it's going to be this hard everytime!. At 10lb 5oz on the scales she was big but plenty of room to grow into, three doubles already and I'm not fishing hard for them either, right place - right time.

Not bad eh!

 I contemplated finishing there but I headed upstream to a few other spots where I thought a fish or two may be holding up and an opportunity to catch a second double of the session came but I contrived to miss the take and cast my tackle into the tree behind me, but if that wasn't bad enough I got a second bite of the cherry and tried not emulate my previous failure of a hook-up but I was obviously in a wasteful mood as the same fish came back for seconds and I bumped the fish which did annoy it no-end. These things happen and apart from foul-hooking another of around 5-6lbs that was my session over, but I was very happy with that fish, a good morning out and grabbed a breakfast roll for the journey home.